The ferry named after Gürsel Aksel that was built by Özata Shipyard and delivered to İzmir Metropolitan Municipality is starting its operations in February.

9th of the 15 new passenger ferries which were named by people of İzmir has been completed. The ferry, the last controls of which have been completed, will be named Gürsel Aksel, after the legend team captain of Göztepe. Expected to be in town at the end of January, Gürsel Aksel is anticipated to start voyages in February.

Last month, İzmir Metropolitan Municipality put the ferry named after legend Cengiz Kocatoros, known as “Gode Cengiz”, into service. In the following months, the names of important football players such as Sait Altınordu, Vahap Özaltay and Metin Oktay will become immortal once again with the new ferries to be built.

The names of the ferries were chosen by the people of İzmir by a voting conducted by İzmir Metropolitan Municipality. More than 500,000 votes were used and “1881-Atatürk” ranked first. İzmir Metropolitan Municipality put 8 ferries into service until now and called them Çakabey, 9 Eylül, 1881 Atatürk, Soma 301, Dario Moreno, Attila İlhan, Foça and Cengiz Kocatoros. The first of the ferryboats was called Hasan Tahsin.